John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID R. HOFFMAN LEGAL EDITOR IN PRAVDA
‘How low will America go?
‘One of the slogans hyperbolized by the racist, narcissistic, venal, inept, sociopathic, demagogic fraud who now occupies the White House is "Make America Great Again." One question this slogan fails to answer is "For Who?"’
The article is perhaps excessively strong in its language and with the odd small misinterpretation, but it is overwhelmingly accurate.
Americans are extremely hostile when they come across an honest view of their country today, and to be honest about America today, you must say some quite harsh things. It is not a pretty place, and its international behavior is staggeringly brutal.
America has morphed into an ugly, predatory thing run by its elites and privileged insiders with no regard for any of the people in the world, and certainly none for its own average citizens. It is a powerful, angry, frustrated country today with almost no principles in its affairs, and it is very dangerous.
It's not just Trump, but the whole American establishment. Trump’s just the latest really ugly, bellowing voice, but much of what he bellows about is the American establishment’s religion. Not all of it, he does go beyond them on some subjects, but a good deal of it.
Here are some informative references on the subject:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/john-chuckman-essay-dangerous-flailing-and-bellowing-of-the-beast/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/the-cia-and-americas-presidents-some-rarely-discussed-truths-shaping-contemporary-american-democracy/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/reflections-on-the-origins-and-meaning-of-americas-independence-day-re-posted-from-6-years-ago-nothing-having-changed/
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Response to another commenter on the article:
And you have the Electoral College even more wrong in your rather smug answer.
The Electoral College was viewed by the Founders as a mechanism against "excessive" democracy.
In its original form, it basically gave a group of elite insiders (those chosen as members) the ability to ignore the popular vote, and they did. It's ironic because so few people could vote anyway at the time of the Founders. You had to be male, of a certain age, white, and must have a certain net worth.
These weren't what we think of as voters, they were a minor aristocracy, a small rural nobility. It is estimated that in early Virginia, that so-called "home of Presidents," about one-percent of the population could vote. Do you know that that is just about the same percentage of population represented by members of the Communist Party in China who elect that country’s leadership?
Whether you know it or not, most of the Founders did not like the very idea of democracy, and that includes Morris, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and many others. Jefferson felt the same way, but he was not a Founder, even though he had written the first draft, much changed after, of the Declaration of Independence. They viewed democracy in much the way Americans would come to look at communism in the 1950s. They were all elite, propertied men - big planters, merchant-traders, lawyers – and they actually discussed the possibility of a democratic government voting to take property from people like themselves.
That's why America is called a "republic," that most vague and undefined terms for government. At the time of the Founders, it pretty well meant nothing more than not having a king plus having some kind of representatives, not at all necessarily popularly selected, who legislated.
Much earlier, there had been several countries in Europe styling themselves as republics, including the Dutch Republic and the Republic of Venice. Indeed, Britain herself, had she not had a monarch – who by that day already had very little real power – might well have been called one with its pretty undemocratic and privileged Parliamentary system.
Of course, for those who studied the matter, most of the American Constitution was little more than a set of variations on Britain’s unwritten Constitution. Little was really new in any of the important elements of America’s founding document. Some of the Founders even wanted a kind of king or quasi-king with a President who was either elected for a very long term or for life. Being above the masses was a constant theme, and something reflected again in set-up of the Senate which until 1913 was an appointed body of elites.
George Washington was very much in harmony with these views. He was a thoroughgoing aristocrat who resented the hoi-polloi and was deeply offended if anyone even touched him. He wore, as President, a formal sash with a sword, in the style of European aristocrats of the day.
If anyone wants to learn more, see:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/decline-of-the-american-empire/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/reflections-on-the-origins-and-meaning-of-americas-independence-day-re-posted-from-6-years-ago-nothing-having-changed/
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Response to an unbelievable comment about God blessing Trump for his “steady hand” on North Korea:
And how about Israel, which has ten times the nuclear weapons of North Korea and is ten times as abusive with millions of lives? It literally runs a concentration camp at Gaza?
No, for Israel, Trump has only gifts, but these are gifts that are not even legally his to give, as his blundering recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.
Your man is an ugly bully, who, by the way in his private life is quite irreligious, so I doubt God is going to be handing out a lot of blessings.
Really, what asinine words you have written, but they are on a level of understanding of unfortunately far too many Americans who appreciate almost nothing of what their government really is doing in the world.
